Swamp Thing #24 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Andrei Bressan (art), Matthew Wilson (colors)

The Story: It only takes a single seed to grow a forest—and piss off a plant god.

The Review: Creating new villains is a tricky business.  Even though the point is to give the hero someone to fight, a villain can’t exist solely for that purpose—or they can, but you wouldn’t be able to use them for more than one issue.  And when you do add some extra motivation, you have to be careful about making them too cliché or simplistic.  Criminals who are greedy, power-hungry, or just plain crazy don’t provide a lot of analytical meat to chew on.

Having seen Soule delve into the hearts, minds, and lives of three completely different villains last month, each from a different sphere of influence (the supernatural, the cosmic, and the urban professional), it’s safe to say that he has a knack for finding the thing that makes an antagonist worth your attention.  It’s not enough to make a villain evil; that just makes them predictable.  Soule knows that it’s each villain’s specific set of values that drives them to make different choices in different circumstances, and that in turn is what makes them compelling.